Wedding invite QR code asking for bank details - is this a thing?

[Newbie2023]

AIBU to find this really odd - are we just totally out of touch with current wedding invitation protocols, or is this a thing now?

We’ve received a wedding invitation card for a friend’s son’s wedding, with a QR code to scan to say whether we will be attending, to access menu choices, etc.
No problem at all, happy to do these - but…

The QR code takes us straight to online forms that ask for our names, addresses, email addresses - ok.
However, the second page of the site asks us to enter our bank card details, and can’t move on without doing this, so can’t say if we’re attending, see a wedding list, give menu choices, etc.
It says the 7-day trial to use this site is free, then we will be charged monthly….
This feels a really odd thing to ask of your wedding guests, but happy to be told we’re just really out of touch!

Is this really actually a thing now?

Advice very welcome! TIA

Wow that’s weird. I’d ask your friend if you can pass your choices through her.

Of course. This place can be totally crazy!

Doomed? Presumably your friend, AKA the grooms mother knows where they live and how to contact them, so if you ask her for the details you're sure to be undoomed accordingly.

Then contact your friend, "mother of the groom", and tell her you are very uncomfortable giving such unnecessary details (I can think of absolutely no non-nefarious reason for them to have your bank details!) and are concerned about the safety of your information on this unknown platform.

If you get nowhere, decline the invitation.

TBH I'd be declining anyway - I would bet good money that the menu choices made on this website will not make it into the meals coming out of the kitchen. You don't know the bride and groom, I'd give it a swerve.

Surely you've asked what your bank details are needed for? What was the answer?

I expect they got excited by the free trial and thought they could use this for their wedding admin and didn't realise their guests would have to sign up to use it too. I'm sure they didn't do this knowing their guests would need to sign up to a subscription!

I’m really intrigued (and in disbelief) why they need your bank details! How on earth is this a thing?

Are they getting your bank details to buy their own wedding presents? Do you have to pay for your own meal? Every guest might be expected to pay towards it…..Nothing would surprise me with the madness of modern weddings.

What was the response when you asked?

Perfectly normal to have an online site fur RSVPs etc these days, and even for transferring money for a wedding gift. But not normal at all to have to give bank details to be able to rsvp, and definitely not for it to be a monthly subscription website! Far too easy to forget to cancel after the free month! Seems like they've chosen their site badly and / or don't understand why people wouldn't be happy giving their details.

I'd just liaise through your friend as she is the reason you are invited. Just tell her you can't use the site, but could she pass on your rsvp (whatever it says). If they say no you have to use the site, then I'd not be going, given you barely know them anyway (and they will have to assume that from lack of reply on site if they won't accept it via your friend).

it isn’t a mistake, guests do have to input bank card details in order to accept/decline invitation, give menu choices, etc.

It will be a very small wedding then. Won't they wonder why no-one has replied to the invitation?

I would contact your friend to let her know that you aren't able to attend the wedding and suggest that asking to provide bank details before even accepting or declining the invitation is an etiquette faux pas.

Did your friend confirm it isn't a mistake (as in the couple know that guests have to input bank details and register for a website free trial)? Or do you mean that you haven't made a user mistake and misunderstood the website the QR code directed you to?

Although I'd still be surprised if the couple haven't done this by accident, without realising that guests will have to input bank details, I would also have sympathy if your friend has steamrollered the couple into inviting all her friends and they're trying to find a (slightly cowardly but non confrontational) way to avoid these people they've never met accepting the invitation instead of having to tell the grooms mum to invite her extra guests!

My wedding was over two decades ago but despite my husband and I being very clear indeed that we wanted a very small informal wedding and only wanted our parents, siblings+siblings partners (none had children then but we would have included children, just as my friends small children were included), and two of my friends and two of his friends plus partner and their babies/ toddlers, my mother sent out her own invitations to her cousins (who I'd met perhaps once each as a baby and who she herself was only in intermittent contact with) and at least twelve of her friends and neighbours whom neither of us could have picked from across the street! She didn't talk to us about it before, just told us afterwards and said "oh well it's done now, and it'll be lovely!" It was so intensely not what we wanted. I made her uninvite them. She was completely mortified. It was her own fault though. If she'd talked to us first about inviting one friend we didn't know it would have been different, but she was making it entirely about her!

So if this has happened to your friend's poor son I sympathise with him and his partner completely, despite being as old now as my mother was at our wedding and having children technically old enough to get married!

Were you planning to attend OP? Seems weird they'd invite someone they barely know just because you're a friend of the mum. Personally I wouldn't attend and I'd message my friend to let her know. I'd say there's no way you're putting all your personal info into a pay-to-use site in order to provide a response.

Well obviously all guests are actually paying for The Big Day....

It sounds like they have used a website where their guests need to subscribe to access the full details. The B&G won't be getting the bank details, the guests will.be signing up to the paid platform.

I'd check with B&G first, it is most likely that they haven't realised this is the case.

Rather than thinking this couple is trying to somehow scam or be CFs to their guests, who presumably they want to attend their wedding.

Obvviously that's not what's happening, the website is trying to charge the guests to use it. Are people really so clueless that they think the couple can actually obtain money from the guests this way?

It clearly isn’t the bride and groom asking for bank details.

It’s the RSVP software/website they’re using.

That's strange and dangerous. There's no way I'd enter my bank details?! Sounds like they should have put theirs in, to access it. But sent it onto the guests instead?! If there's no way to apply, I'd leave it. They'll send a follow up when no ones applied.

I would text your friend to say you are unable to attend her son's wedding.

And the only reason you are letting her know as you do not give your bank details to random companies online, and as that is the only way to contact the B & G, could she please pass on your reply.

My daughter managed her invites, responses and menus on a similar site but there was no charge to guests to respond . I think it’s quite common now to save the expense of sending paper invites. I guess the B&G haven’t read the terms and conditions.

It's totally normal for wedding information to be shared this way- we chose our meals based on that, for example.

However there shouldn't be a monthly fee after the free trial- that would be for the couple not the guests.

Has the couple clarified?

How ridiculously passive aggressive, there’s no need not to attend, it’s clearly a simple mistake.

Don’t be silly, the website/app is obviously a paid platform you’re supposed to pay a feee to use, the bride and groom have clearly misunderstood and think it’s free when they should’ve paid a subscription fee.

They’re not going to get any money from the QR code.

Why on earth would you assume the menu choices won’t be arranged, how unnecessarily melodramatic 🤣 it’s obviously a mistake where they don’t realise it’s not free.

No the mistake is that they’ve quite clearly assumed this is a free website and the bride & groom need to have paid a fee before sending it out which they’re not done.

You obviously have contact details for your friend whose son is getting married just call her.